Demons Undone: The Sons of Gulielmus Series

by Holley Trent

  They needed to de-escalate this situation—whatever it was—and fast.

  “Call off your bitch,” the blond man said in the same sort of flat tone a man giving his secretary would use. Stressed? Nope. Not him. He looked like he did shit like this every day, popping into country-western bar kitchens and scaring the living daylights out of underpaid cooks.

  “I’ll show you a bitch, demon,” Sweetie said. “Don’t think I won’t try to fuck you up. I don’t care whose daddy you are. You touch my friend, and you’ll be soaking that sweet ass of yours in a brimstone bath for a week to make the hurtin’ stop. Oh, and I’ll make it hurt in a way you won’t like.” She snapped her teeth, and the brown-haired man cringed. Blue eyes. Exact same ones as Claude, Charles, Julia, and John.

  “Daddy?” Gail whispered.

  Clarissa put that arm back in front of her and adjusted her grip on her knife. “Mm-hmm. That’s him.”

  Fuck! Could she make it to the door?

  “Gail?” The bartender banged on the shutters again.

  “Not a good time, Gulielmus,” Clarissa said, flipping her knife to an underhand grip. She pointed it right at the big man’s chest, and Gail didn’t doubt she’d use it if provoked. “You want to tussle? Fine, but not here. Too many humans in this place.”

  He locked a bottomless, unblinking blue stare onto Clarissa and the sword suddenly vanished. Smoothing his large hands down his immaculate white shirt, he ground his jaw side to side.

  The other man, now on his feet, put his hands up, palms out, and moved closer to the big demon. “Tell them why we’re here so we can go, or let’s just go. We’re losing tracking time. Priorities, remember?”

  Gulielmus didn’t seem to hear him, or if he did, he didn’t care to respond. He crossed his arms over his massive chest and blinked once. “Hobbit.” The ensuing sneer indicated that wasn’t meant as a term of endearment.

  “My, my.” Clarissa affected an exaggerated drawl and clucked her tongue. “You been catching up on your reading, honey? You’re only a hundred years behind. And you know as well as I do that I’m far too pretty to be a hobbit.”

  “Don’t flatter yourself.”

  “I don’t have to flatter myself.” She shrugged. “You wanted me for your whore, so I’m obviously enticing enough for you to want to screw. I bet you’d be good at it, too.”

  Oh, boy.

  Gail wasn’t sure if she should laugh or cry at the situation. How could Clarissa joke at a time like this? And with the man who’d killed Gail, er, Laurette during their last encounter, no less. What the hell was going on between those two?

  “Gail?” The bartender pounded again.

  “Better answer him,” the brown-haired man said. “We’ll be gone in a minute. You have my word you’ll be unharmed.”

  “I don’t know you from Adam, bud. That guy right there—”

  Clarissa tried to block Gulielmus from Gail’s view with her body, but as Clarissa was several inches shorter, it was an ineffectual strategy.

  “He killed me—or at least the body I was living in at the time. You’ll have to excuse me for being crusty.”

  “Got it. If it makes you feel any better, I’m the most recent sucker forced into incubus service against his will.” He gave a slight bow, keeping his eyes on the ladies in front of him. Smart, because with the way Sweetie was sniffing at him, he may as well have been sewn into a paper sack labeled Wolf Chow. “My name is Jason. And you’re Gail, obviously. I must say, Claude’s a lucky man. You’re stunning.”

  “Aww.” Gail couldn’t help the blush burning her face or the dumb smile she probably wore. She patted her hair down at the edges and giggled.

  Clarissa gave her a hard blow to the ribs with her elbow, and Gail straightened up again.

  Fucking incubi. It was if they had magic in their words, but the more likely truth was just that Gail was merely that easily flattered. It was a side effect of being cut down so much during the past twenty-nine years.

  This time, the bartender yanked on the kitchen door, but it didn’t budge. Gulielmus must have locked it somehow during his stealthy teleporting.

  “Gail?”

  “Answer him,” Jason whispered.

  Right. Wouldn’t do to alert the front of the house to the chaos in the kitchen. She cleared her throat. “It’s okay,” she shouted. “We had a bit of a grease fire back here, but we’ve got it under control. We’re clearing the smoke out the back door now.”

  “Damn,” the bartender said. “Orders are piling up out here. Do what you can fast, but I’ll comp them some beer.”

  “Great. You do that.”

  Sweetie moved slowly between Gail and Clarissa and the guys. “Not to be rude and rush y’all along or nothin’, but what do y’all want? You said you ain’t here to hurt her—”

  “Again,” Gail muttered. “Hurt me again.”

  Finally, the big demon turned his attention away from Clarissa and locked his cold gaze squarely on Gail.

  Balling her hands into fists at her sides, she straightened her spine and lifted her chin. Last time, he’d dispatched her in her sleep. If she were going to go down again, she was going to go down swinging. Or, at least, cursing.

  “As of right now, my sons and their toys are at the bottom of my list of concerns,” Gulielmus said.

  It took a moment too long for that implication to settle into Gail’s brain, and when it did, nothing could get between her and that smug prick. Her id didn’t care that he was as old as the universe and could probably blast her into outer space with just a snap of his fingers. That little cavewoman part of her had picked up a cleaver, charged it with as much electricity as she could gather in a millisecond, and had it soaring through the air toward his chest before her common sense could kick in and stop her.

  And surprisingly, it actually struck. When it did, his big body jerked and convulsed, and his eyes rolled back into his head.

  That lasted all of two seconds before he pulled the knife out and tossed it to the floor.

  Jason chuckled quietly, his shoulders bobbing ever so slightly as his eyes squinted with mirth. He didn’t stop laughing when Gulielmus’s growl reverberated through the kitchen. “Oh, shit, G. I bet the rumors are true. Claude could take you in a fair fight if what he loaned her is any hint of the extent of his power.” He wriggled his eyebrows at Gail. “Can you do it again? He so fucking deserves it. I’d do it myself if I could, but I’m just a psychic. My brothers have all the cool tricks.”

  “What are you talking about?” Gail asked, staring at the bloody cleaver. How had she done that? She could barely remember picking the thing up, much less doing anything to it to make him convulse that way.

  “Ask him when you get home, precious,” Jason said. He gave his father a slap on the back. “Go on and deliver your message to the nice ladies. You look like you might pop a vein.” He pointed to a particularly prominent blood vessel on the demon’s temple. “I bet popping a vein would actually hurt now, right?” His shoulders started shaking yet again. “Apparently, he couldn’t feel pain up until recently.”

  Gulielmus bared his teeth at Jason, and Jason put his hands up and took a step back. “Just sayin’.” He winked at Sweetie, who now had her head cocked to the side and stared at the men as if they’d been mistakenly signed out of the funny farm.

  “We have a common enemy,” Gulielmus said through clenched teeth.

  He really was very attractive, even with the sneer. He must have been magnificent to look at when he wasn’t trying and failing at being ugly. Anyway, she could see whom the guys got their good looks from. Hot fucking damn.

  If he wasn’t a sword-swinging psychopath—

  Clarissa nudged her ribs again. “Stop staring at him. I don’t know what’s wrong with him, but I bet he could seduce you without trying. You’re obviously susceptible to it.”

  Gail opened her mouth, then closed it. Why argue? The woman was right. “You’re not?”

  “No. Remember to tell Claude he�
��s got to protect his girl from Daddy Dearest’s charms, Sweetie.”

  “Mm-hmm.” Sweetie moved a bit closer to Jason and sniffed him.

  He raised one dark eyebrow and extended a hand to her. She grabbed it, and sighed. “Just stand real still and let me get my wolfie hormones in check.”

  “Uh, okay.” He looked to Clarissa as if for explanation, and she just shook her head.

  “You were saying about a common enemy?” Clarissa said by way of nudging.

  Gulielmus blew out an exasperated breath and raked a hand through his yellow-blond hair. It fell back into perfect order. Neat trick.

  Gail patted her own wild hair and wondered if there was some magic Claude could teach her for that. Then again, Claude tended to look like he avoided combs as a matter of principle, so maybe he wouldn’t know how to—

  Clarissa gave her a third hard nudge to the ribs. “Did you hear him?”

  “Fuck! Hear what?”

  “Can you focus?”

  “On what?”

  Clarissa pressed her palm to her forehead and dragged her hand down her face. “It’s the magic,” she muttered. “She can’t digest it. It’s like corn or roughage or something.”

  Gail was feeling a bit loopy. She’d been thinking in zigzags instead of straight lines all night. “I’m sorry. Tell me again. I’m listening now.”

  “He said that we have a common enemy. Ross. The same screw-up who has all the folks back at Mortonville in a tizzy—the same one who’s probably responsible for fucking your man up real bad—is messing with his own granddaddy, too.”

  “Granddaddy?”

  Clarissa crooked a thumb toward the giant demon, who now just looked tired.

  As far as Gail knew, angels and demons didn’t do tired.

  “Ross is out of control, and Gulielmus can’t find him because he’s not demon enough to hit his psychic radar. Charles might be able to find him since he’s his son, but even that’s iffy if Ross works his mental shields the way he’s supposed to.”

  “So, he’s trying to blast the boys to smithereens? Why?”

  Gulielmus cleared his throat. “That’s complicated.”

  “Like everything in this secret world, right? Well, guess what? I’m a part of it. So, how about you talk to me very slowly and with small words, and maybe I’ll understand.”

  His nostrils flared and bright eyes went cloudy, but he didn’t otherwise react. She had no intention of testing his temper, really, but she wasn’t going to be talked down to by him, either. She also wasn’t going to run from him, because fuck that. He needed to respect her or else today wasn’t going to be the last time she drew first blood.

  “Okay, little witch, I’ll tell you this. If we don’t find him and whoever he’s working with and deal with them, the least of your worries will be whether or not your boyfriend gets knocked on his ass for a couple of days. You think your life is disrupted now, but just wait until the humans find out people like you exist. You’ll never have a day’s rest or will be able to leave your home without paranoid suspicions that everyone knows what you are. You’ll think they’ll want to harm you, and they probably will, because like your family, they’re all afraid of things they don’t understand.”

  She gulped. She didn’t like the sound of that scenario. “But what does that have to do with Ross? And wait—why do you two know so much about me? I’ve been on the scene for, like, two days.”

  “He’s got informants everywhere,” Jason said, “and some of them don’t even know they are. Be careful who you talk to, okay? There are no secrets.”

  “Interesting. Now answer the other question.”

  Gulielmus smoothed his hands over his now-bloody shirt and re-centered his belt buckle.

  It was nice to know that he could bleed. It humanized him a little.

  “That wasn’t the complicated part,” he said flatly. “I’m only telling you this because it serves me no purpose to keep it a secret at this point.”

  “I’m getting a bad feeling about this,” Clarissa said.

  “As you should, dwarf.” His grin was unctuous and predatory, yet indescribably sexy.

  Gail averted her eyes. Being aroused by her lover’s father was just wrong on so many levels.

  “It’s better to have an enemy you know than one you don’t,” Gulielmus said. “Trust me. I’m the more appealing option between me and Ross because I play by the rules. He doesn’t. There’ve been rumblings that some of the bureaucrats in Hell are establishing a new guard, and they like things messy. I’m not the first demon who’s been stabbed in the back by one of his own descendants.”

  Clarissa gasped. “You think Ross sold you out. He wants your position.”

  He shrugged. “I’m working on confirming it, but it seems pretty likely. I suspect his scheme was originally meant to aggravate Charles, but Ross set his sights on bigger fish. Why go after the scion when you can target the fountainhead?”

  “It’s already started,” Jason said. “Gulielmus is losing power as Ross gains it. And his bosses don’t think he’ll do what he needs to take it back. They challenged him.”

  Clarissa put her hands on her hips. “Just what is it that he needs to do? I’ve never known you to be squeamish, Gulielmus.”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “So, what’s your stake in this mess?” Sweetie dropped Jason’s hand and took back her seat near the walk-in freezer, staring at him.

  He help up his left palm and a blue symbol Gail couldn’t interpret glowed behind the flesh. “He just marked me. I’m a brand-new recruit. I’ve got maybe a month before this demon stuff is irreversible, and I don’t particularly want to go through the rest of my life with the potential to accidentally irreparably harm my partners. Nor do I plan on being celibate, ’cause fuck that. I love sex.”

  Sweetie rolled her eyes, and Gail suspected that she wasn’t the only one who’d endured a recent dry spell. At least Gail’s had come to an end, but given recent events, she may start another one soon.

  If she had to give up great sex to have less drama in her life, she’d have to ponder her choice long and hard, but being a responsible grown-up, she’d probably do it.

  Maybe.

  “I’m a dowser. I’m a psychic who finds shit,” Jason continued. “And in this case, a shitty person. I’d really, really like that particular skill to go away along with the rest of the nagging voices in my head. You feel me? That’s our deal. I help him find Ross, and Big G here siphons off my undesirable traits.”

  Just like that, he’d give up his power—what set him apart from every other person?

  Gail picked up the spatula and idly turned the handle between her palms.

  She’d lived her whole life having people tell her that she was weak, and now that she knew what it felt like to not be the weakest person in the room, she wasn’t so sure she’d give that up so easily.

  At least, not yet.

  “Heed my words, Gail,” Gulielmus said. “I came here because Jason followed Ross’s trail through here, just like he’d been at your apartment this week.”

  Her apartment?

  “Why would he want me?”

  “No criticism intended, but I’m not convinced he wants you.”

  “You’re not making any sense.”

  “Ross, I mean. He’s mentally disorganized. He wouldn’t make the connection on his own that harming you would agitate Claude.”

  Agitate. Such a mild verb. She narrowed her eyes at Gulielmus, and he finally cracked a grin that wasn’t completely smarmy. He found her amusing, apparently.

  “So, it’s a messy coincidence. Whoever he’s working with is interested in her,” Clarissa said.

  He nodded slowly. “That would be my best guess. It’s likely another witch. Have you made any enemies, Gail?”

  Enemies? Other than during her divorce? Nope. She’d always been a good girl. God forbid she offended anyone. Her grandmother would probably hear about it.

  She shook her hea
d.

  “Well, be careful, witch. He didn’t get his chance to catch you, but perhaps you’re substitutable. Mind your sister, because whoever it is may decide that she’ll do in a pinch.”

  She reached into her pocket and snatched out her phone. Still no response from Ellery.

  He grabbed Jason by the collar and they both started to fade at the edges.

  “Wait!” she called out, dashing around Clarissa. “Don’t go. My sister!”

  “If we see her, we’ll let you know,” Jason said. His voice held a note of true empathy as they disappeared, but that wasn’t good enough.

  If we see her could be too late, and Gail refused to stand idle when she could act.

  “Fuck.” She tossed the spatula into the corner where the demons had been standing and threw open the shutters.

  “I’ll call the boys and let them know what’s happening,” Clarissa said. “It’s a long damn drive back to the coast.”

  Gail called the bartender. “Hey! Tell Barrett I can’t do my two weeks. I’m sorry, but I gotta get out of here.”

  She hoped that feeling in her gut was wrong and that Ellery was fine.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Claude stubbed out his cigarette when the headlights of Clarissa’s pick-up truck angled toward the long driveway. Barefoot, he walked down the porch stairs and across the grass to greet them the moment they parked.

  He pulled on the front passenger door’s handle and mashed his thumb against the square red button on Gail’s seatbelt release before she could refuse his aid.

  He pulled her out, wrapped her tightly in his arms, and pressed his face against the bend of her neck.

  “Claude, let go of me,” she said flatly.

  He didn’t take it personally, considering what must have been circulating through her mind at the moment. She wanted to spring to action, probably, but he needed his magic back. He was going damn near manic, as evidenced by the two full packs of cigarettes he’d smoked in the half day she’d been gone.

  He just hadn’t wanted to strip it from her too fast. It’d be far worse than ripping a Band-Aid off. If he used too much force, he would potentially take what wasn’t his.